The first apt I lived in was a high rise. My apt was near the top and the roof lights would shine in my windows but with the blinds closed it wasn't so bad and I got used to sleeping with a whiteish light outside. One early early morning something woke me up, and instead of white lights i saw orangeish lights outside. I also heard a very faint crackle crackle crackle. I looked outside and one of the units on the other side of the courtyard on the top floor was on fire. I tried calling the front desk but no one answered, so i got dressed and left. About that time the fire alarms in the halls started going off. Had to walk down about 20 flights of stairs to get outside.

In the second apartment building I lived in, my apt was on the 10th floor. The building was on a hill, so the back entrance to the parking lot was on the third floor. My apt looked out onto the parking lot. Every so often a fire truck would appear in the parking lot and a short while later a burned mattress would be thrown out the back door. One Sunday afternoon I was baking cookies, and heard the familiar rumble of a fire truck. I kept looking out the window to see the burned mattress appear but it didn't. I had my windows open and the truck's radio was at full volume so I could hear every dispatch like I was standing right next to the truck. Suddenly I hear a long series of alarm tones and a voice reading out a long list of trucks, engines, squads, etc and my address. I shut off my stove and grabbed my purse and left my apt and encountered a hallway full of smoke. About halfway down the stairs I encountered a group of firefighters in full gear walking up. I exited out the back door and walked around the building to see a whole cluster of fire and police vehicles in the front parking lot. On the 5th or 6th floor there was a unit with a broken out window where it was obvious the fire had been. And in the windown directly about this unit was some idiot woman looking out her window at all of us standing in the parking lot.

Just a few months ago, at around 3 a.m., A speeding car went barrelling down our street and was stopped at the end of the street by 2 police cars that tried to block it's way. There was gunfire involved ... and lights, and cameras, and a whole movie crew

A sad one happened a couple of years after we'd moved in: a resident of the building commited suicide by jumping off our rooftop into the parking lot next door. We could see his blanket covered body when we had to leave for work early the next morning.

In the 3 years we've lived at our current location, 2 pig trucks have overturned in the neighbors yard. There's a curve in the road in front of his place, and the driver's fail to slow down enough.

While I was still living with my parents, there was a drug raid on the house next door. They'd been having a party, so there were LOTS of people running all over, jumping fences, etc. I'd been baby-sitting and was walking home in the middle of all this. A cop stopped me to question me, then escorted me to our house where (luckily) my dad claimed me as his daughter.

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It's not what we gather along the way that matters. It's what we scatter.

-Another "we don't see it", but we hear gunshots somewhat frequently. Although they've gotten less frequent recently. Must be the economy and the cost of ammunition.

We hear gunshots frequently. But we're near the woods, where there's a lot of deer-hunting. So we're used to it. We had some cousins from Chicago visit during deer season and when they heard the first shots they freaked out. And they were even more freaked out that we didn't even respond.

Mom had a Coworker (red floor in the drawing below) who, after being sort of brainwashed by people (mostly one coworker, purple floor on the drawing below) who had something against Mom (no idea why as Mom does her fair share of work and then some, and whatever perk she has, she earned it fair and square) , started to be really, really nasty to Mom. He would slam doors when he saw her, and not just give her an icy glare, but a deadly laser volcano beam of uber doom glare. At some point, he started threatening to kill us (yeah, all the family) and that is when we had to make sure we would lock the doors at night, but also make sure the cat was inside as much as possible. My sisters were not allowed out without direct supervision for a while, things like that.

One day, I had to take my cat to the vet. My best friend was with me. For background, I will give you a nicely Paint figure of the building at the time (it has since been destroyed, and the whole thing is still in construction, and the new accomodation was finished last year) .

(Stick figure added for perspective) .

Mom's office was the first blue part at the bottom. Right behind that was the first appartment she was attributed, the one directly associated with her job. The second blue part was the apartment she had been authorized to use before she was officially installed as the receptionist, and was allowed to use later because our family was a little too big to be comfortable in the small downstairs flat.

Anyway, on Mom's office level, you had administrative offices for the school and other things. Their roof was a sort of "terrace" for the apartment of the first floor, occupied at the time by the Principal's daughter. It was not a real terrace in that you could see it from the window, but you could not access it easily to use it, as it was not its purpose.

You might wonder what I am getting to.

Well, that fateful day, I go home to the blue apartment (second floor) when I hear a loud *thud* . Since all kitchen windows on that side had a "terrace view" , I immediately went to look.

Nasty coworker had jumped from his window!!! I found myself calling the paramedics (and PurpleNeighbor, for some reason, called the cops as it was happening, which is weird because Nasty Coworker was supposedly his friend... wouldn't he want his friend to be rescued ? Duh) .

We had to go bother the Principal's wife to get a key to her daughter's apartment (yellow), so that the paramedics could access the "terrace" from the kitchen.

The "best" part ? Me having to go to the police to testify later, and reading slander about the Principal in the newspapers a few days after the incident. Because it's a very, very big possibility that Nasty coworker never intended to harm himself badly, just enough to get attention on him and claim that his place of employment did this to him.

1 - A naked man climbed onto my neighbours roof and wrestled their chimney. He then declared himself the winner and did a naked victory dance.

For the win!!

WARNING: Murder and suicide mentioned below:

Before we bought our house, we lived in what was a nice, qiuet apartment building for several years. Our complex was in front of another complex, and we lived on the second floor. so our living room and balcony overlooked a grassy area that seperated the building, and the neighbors-behind-us front door/patio area.

1) We came home one Saturday evening to discover the local police, the state police, the swat team, the fire dept, the evidence team, and the coronor's office all parked in the grassy area. It seems that the 21yo grandson of the lady (and her boyfriend) that lived behind us had went crazy and stabbed his GM (& BF) on the previous Tuesday. From our balcony, wecould see into their living room, and see just gallons of blood everywhere, and the GS had been living there, with 2 dead bodys that he stuffed under a bed in the spare bedroom. Apparently, there was quite a smell. AND... my next door neighbor was home that morning of the murders and heard the victims screaming, and didn't call the police. (She was going out to lunch, and was just too, too busy. )

2) Same apartment--a couple of years later--a meth lab moved into the apartment directly below us. All the signs/smells were there, we (and other resdients) called the police, and nothing was ever done, even when they caught the apt on fire. (We moved shortly afterwards!)

3) Same apartment--while we were trying to move--there was a 55-ish man that lived alone in the next building. I'd see him out from time to time, and we'd chat--he seemed like a nice, lonely man. I didn't see him for a while, but his car was parked in his spot, so I didn't think anything about it, as our meetings were erratic. So.... the mailman (I'm not sure exactly what transpirred here) told the manager that the guy's mail was piling up, and that there was a smell coming from the apt, but the manager told him that his rent was still being paid (auto withdrawal from bank), so she wasn't concerned (Yes, she was an evil, vile woman) The mailman finally convinced the police to break down the door, and found that the poor guy had committed suicide in March (this was mid-June). He was in the tub, and had left a note from early March. The stench was horrendous, and how the above and next door neighbors lived through it was unbelievable. The manager hired a crime-scene clean up company to clean the apartment, and that in itself is a whole 'nother story. (We were told not to go outside and to close our windows for several hours due to the smell and the chemicals being used to fumigate/kill the flys. The dumpster was a nightmare...)

« Last Edit: August 02, 2011, 06:57:07 AM by happygrrl »

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"I am the laziest person on Earth. I want to learn to photosynthesize so I can buy a sun lamp and survive without getting out of bed." M-theory 11/23/10

Well, I may have told the story somewhere before but here goes.Nasty coworker had jumped from his window!!! I found myself calling the paramedics (and PurpleNeighbor, for some reason, called the cops as it was happening, which is weird because Nasty Coworker was supposedly his friend... wouldn't he want his friend to be rescued ? Duh) .

Just before we moved out of our last apartment we had front-window seats to police swat-team operation. Men in black, lots of police cars and mobile units with satellite dishes, the works. The scariest part was listening to the automatic weapons being primed. I have pics. I'll post them later.

My Mom's road seems to be the Street of Crazy. In the past 13 years, the following has happened:

One day I came home and saw tons of police cars, an ambulance, and two police helicopters hovering around a few houses down. It turned out that a neighbor had shot two other neighbors over a land dispute. He killed one and seriously injured the other. The land didn't belong to any of them, for the record..it belonged to the county.

About a year after that, a dog brought home a severed human hand. Dog's owner freaks out, calls cops. Cops show up, start search of surrounding fields/woods/etc, and find more body parts. It turned out that someone had murdered a man, cut him up, and then driven out to the rural country in hopes that the body parts wouldn't be found. The murderer was sadly mistaken, as he chose to dump the body in an area with a lot of hunting dogs that are allowed to roam free.

Last year I had borrowed my Mom's car while mine was having repairs done. After my car was fixed, I went to drop her car off with DH following behind in my car. We got to her road and saw police cars, fire trucks, and a big black bomb squad van. The cops told us to turn around and leave the area now, as they'd discovered pipe bombs in the house 3 houses down from my Mom's. So we had to turn around and leave. It turns out that the builder of the pipe bombs was a cop who had gone around the bend.

my sister once had a murder take place in their apartment building. this was a small building, maybe 20-30 apartments in a small dusty town

many years ago, i was living with my then husband in an apartment building in a tiny town. the building was four stories, several entrances, 2 apartments on a floor. we lived on the top floor. one night we heard noise outside the door and above the ceiling. we go outside to find a bunch of guys climbing up to the roof (there was a ladder/railing on the hallway wall to go up to the roof.). we asked them what was going on, they said "shush. we're police and we're doing a stake out". turns out that they were looking for drug dealers who lived across the way...

and in one of the first apartments i rented, there were neighbors who used to fight all.the.time, including at-top-of-their-lungs yelling and throwing/breaking dishes.

Years ago, my roommate and I were looking out the window of our fourth-floor apartment one night, and saw a man being arrested. He threw himself against the wall and threw himself to the ground. It was bizarre. We figured he was trying to make it look like police brutality. We talked about calling the police to witness that the cops did not hit him, but I can't remember if we called.

The saddest thing about my current neighborhood is that I'm used to seeing ambulances in my parking lot. There was a woman who used to live here who was diabetic and she was not well-controlled. The ambulance came for her all the time. She moved away, but I heard that she died later. Then there was an ambulance at my elderly neighbor's place. Then there was one for my next-door neighbor's son, also a diabetic, because she came home and found him unconscious. (And of course there was the grease fire that I mentioned earlier.)

The most dramatic thing that ever happened in my neighborhood was last year when the huge pear tree in my next door neighbor's front yard was struck by lightning during a massive thunder storm. The tree split in half and came thisclose to caving in the front of their house when it came crashing down (they were so so lucky!)

The nice thing was seeing how the neighborhood really rallied to help them cut up and haul away the remains of the tree afterward.

According to a police blotter my friend found before we moved in, someone who lived in our house before we moved in was arrested for possession of marijuana. And from what we were told about the previous residents by people who knew her, she was an elderly lady who lived with some grandchildren (it was a young male who'd been arrested) who were supposed to be looking after her, but weren't doing a very good job.

Our neighborhood is pretty quiet. We used to hear more sirens before the hospital closed down and moved about 3 miles away (used to be just a few blocks away)

In the neighborhood I grew up in though, there was a fire that burned the house around the corner and melted the cars in the garage. I don't remember the cause but I do remember there being a lot of people gathered around, watching in horror.

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Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. Be cheerful, strive to be happy. -Desiderata

When I lived in Kansas City, I was awakened early one morning (2.30-3.30 AM) by a loud thud. I thought the dachshund sleeping in the room with me had knocked something over, and I scolded him. I tried to drift back to sleep-and then there was another loud thud. So I turned on the light, and nothing in the room was disturbed. I looked out the window-couldn't see anything wrong. I went back to bed and presumably back to sleep. (I should mention that I was a night shift worker then, and I wore wax ear plugs to help me sleep on the nights I was off, so noises were very muffled.)

I found out that morning that I had heard an explosion that had taken the life of several fire fighters responding to a call.

This was major headline news back in the day : A movie (Backdraft) was made and dedicated to the memory of the KC fire fighters who'd lost their lives (but it's not about that incident, just dedicated to their memory) and a large memorial fountain was erected in their honor.

Years later, I watched an Unsolved Mysteries reenactment that strongly suggested the fire was deliberate arson. :-(

Incidentally, I saw Backdraft at the theater. It remains one of the few movies I've seen that brought out audience participation. Emotions were still running high in KC when this movie was shown here (I think it may actually have premiered in KC) and you should have heard the audience cheer when (A) the fire fighters broke out the window on an expensive car parked in front of a hydrant AND under a NO PARKING sign , in order to put out a blaze, and (B) when a fire fighter inside a burning building, surrounded by flames, stops to light up a cigarette (MASSIVE applause for that scene).

I just moved from a large high-rise to a house. This past Spring there was a big ruckus on the top floor of the garage. Now, I lived a block from a major hospital so hearing sirens was nothing new; I ignored them. However, this was closer and there were more of them than usual.

Turns out that a guy in my building committed suicide. He sat in his car and set it on fire, right there in the rooftop parking garage. He'd taken meds just before so it may be that the time the fire got him he was unconscious. I hope so.

And one more: about 15 yrs ago my cousin and his wife were guests in my parents' home. One morning dad, mom, and cousin's wife were in the kitchen downstairs when they heard a big "thud!" from the 2nd floor. Cousin had dropped dead of a heart attack in the upstairs bathroom. He was instantly gone. He was in his 50s so it was hardly expected. Getting his body home was complicated, though. They had to get legal papers in order to take him across the border to Canada (we also had to do this with dad - he died in the states but was buried in Ontario). You want to get a from border crossing guards? When they ask if you're declaring anything say, "I have a dead body in the back of the car."